


One More, For Love

by Shadaras



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 13:05:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18638698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/pseuds/Shadaras
Summary: Pepper’s seen hundreds of Iron Man suits over the years, maybe thousands if she counted all the discarded designs. This was different. Sleek. Forget-me-not blue and purest silver. No visible heart on its chest; just luminary rays accenting the soft curves.





	One More, For Love

“I’d been planning to wait for our anniversary, but, well—” Pepper can hear the smile in Tony’s voice, the wry twist of a self-deprecating joke that’s never really gone away. He opens the door to his workshop, and makes a line straight to one of many unassuming closets. “I think that with the band getting back together, I want you to have this now.”

“Tony, what—”

Pepper stops talking as soon as Tony steps out of the way. She’s seen hundreds of Iron Man suits over the years, maybe thousands if she counted all the discarded designs. This was different. Sleek. Forget-me-not blue and purest silver. No visible heart on its chest; just luminary rays accenting the soft curves. Pepper closes her eyes and swallows the tears threatening to choke her.

Before she can quite reclaim her voice, Tony’s fidgeting bursts out into words again. “Look, I know, it’s not— You’ve never wanted this, but I— We both know that something might happen to— And I want to be sure that...”

He trails off as Pepper closes the distance between them and wraps her arms around him, resting her forehead against his shoulder. “I know,” she whispers.

Tony’s arms reach around her, strong and solid as they have ever been.

“Thank you,” Pepper says, because Tony has given her his heart many times over the years (literally and figuratively in equal measure), but this— He’s tried to step away from it, since Morgan’s birth, but they both know that Tony Stark is still Iron Man, even as he tries to be an eccentric engineer of a dad instead. There was no chance he’d step away, once Rhodey came calling with Steve.

Tony presses a kiss to her temple. Gently, he asks, “Do you want to try it on?”

Pepper shakes her head, but she lifts her eyes anyway, stares into the suit’s face. “But I need to.”

“Yeah.” Tony sighs. He looks like his heart is breaking, but he’s smiling at her, so full of love that she feels like she just might cry anyway. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

“I wish—” Pepper’s throat clogs, but she forces the words out anyway. “We knew it would never be over so long as there was any chance to reverse it.”

“We’ve had so much more time than I ever dreamed of, Pep.” Tony’s hands are stroking her face, wiping away—Pepper realises she’s crying after all. “I never could have _imagined_ Morgan, ten years ago. Even five years ago, she was a miracle I’d never thought to ask for.”

Pepper clings to Tony’s wrists, lets him ground her with his calloused fingers and rough lips. “I’d almost believed that you’d get to see her grow up without danger hanging over our heads again.”

Tony laughs, but it’s broken, and his eyes are shining wet. “Sweetheart, we’ve come so close. And I’m gonna come back to you. Promise. I’m not setting out to die.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I mean it, Pep.” Tony’s hands still, and his face is serious, lines settling in. Even the warm light of his workshop can’t erase the age and the scars she’s seen work their way into his skin. “I’m going to come back to you. I’m going to come back to Morgan. I’ve done my best to be a good dad for her, and I want that to continue. I don’t need another generation of Starks with daddy issues.”

Pepper laughs, even as the tears keep flowing. “You’re an amazing dad, Tony. She’s going to learn so much from you.”

Tony wraps her up in a hug, and she strokes his hair, coarse but still thick, as his tears fall, warm, onto her shoulder. She lets her own tears roll off her cheeks and onto the crown of his head, and closes her eyes. She isn’t going to lose him tonight, or tomorrow, but— the Avengers have always taken more from him than they realise, and she’s had years, now, where Tony hasn’t had to worry about death.

“Does the suit have a name?” she asks, as Tony’s tears slow.

“Huh?” Tony straightens, glances over his shoulder, and gives her an almost shy smile. “I’d been calling it Rescue.”

Pepper looks at him, and smiles, tension running out of her body. “That’s perfect,” she tells him, and he straightens and his smile firms. “Because I’ve rescued you more than enough times, and I don’t want to need to wear the suit at all, but if I’ve got to?” She kisses him full-on, and then whispers, her lips still brushing his, “I’m going to wear it to save all your asses again.”

Tony doesn’t say anything, just holds her close and rocks back and forth with her, his forehead pressed against hers and eyes closed. Pepper lets him, savoring the moment, until he slowly slides his arms away from her and steps aside so that she’s facing Rescue full-on. Pepper takes a breath, and then steps forward and turns so that her back just brushes the suit.

As she’d known it would, Rescue responds by sliding over her, fitting better than any dress she’s ever worn, armor that she knows could stop a bullet but feels no heavier than a winter coat and moves like a second skin. The HUD forms before her eyes, and FRIDAY murmurs, “Hello, Pepper,” in her ears.

Pepper breathes, lets her heart settle, and says, “Okay, Tony. Has this gotten any less intuitive than last time I wore one?”

“I try only to improve,” he says easily, hands in his pockets to hide how much she knew he wanted to fidget his nerves away. He steps back three paces, and says, “Try hovering.”

Pepper nods and spreads her hands next to her hips. Once upon a time, Tony had buttons and hardwired controls. Then he’d discovered neuro-linked technology, and everything had gotten a little easier, if a little stranger. Pepper concentrates, and holds herself steady. The armor will keep her safe and compensate enough to keep her safe (Tony had learned very well to have his AI linked to a backup gyroscope from his early failures), but she prefers not to leave anything to chance.

Her palms warm, not because they need to but because the sensory feedback helps keep the wearer from forgetting that the repulsors are on. There’s a hum she feels more than hears, and Pepper sees herself rise a few inches off the ground. She smiles, and tilts her hands so she drifts closer to Tony. He doesn’t move away, and his whole face is lit up in awe and delight.

She remembers that look: Tony’s worn it each and every time she’s been in armor.

“My hero,” he breathes, as she lands just in front of him and the suit folds back until it feels like nothing more than a corset.

Pepper laughs, and kisses him, and carefully presses the moment into her memory, safe among all the other scrapbook images of Tony in her heart:

Tony laughing at Rhodey’s worst jokes; how proud he was the first time their garden bore crops; of the look on his face the first time he held his daughter, proud and scared and happier than she had ever imagined when she’d first met him; of long nights reading together, telling each other the ridiculous things in their respective texts; of how very beautiful he was when he was creating something new, expressive _joy_ suffusing his body as he realised his design worked in practice as well as theory; the nights she heard him murmuring bedtime stories to his helping bots, just like he did with their daughter; the pride and hope and joy when Morgan had first helped him build a toy; the soft love as they danced at their wedding, and the little moments she caught it again and again throughout the years.

She can see that very same love on his face now, for her and for his life. It comes so easily to him now.

She wants to keep it on his face forever.

And so Pepper tells Tony, “I’m Morgan’s hero first,” just to see him laugh and listen to him protest that he’s got that covered, thank you, she doesn’t need to steal that from him just yet, and they walk back into the house to read and argue about the benefits of organic farming, and Pepper tells herself she’s not going to cry until he’s gone.

(Later, she realises she’s right, and hates that she was, because she’d never meant—

_Gone_ wasn’t supposed to be forever.)


End file.
